Hesitant Smile
by FootstepsOnTheShadowedPath
Summary: She just moved into her uncle's house. He just moved into a new shoe size. She tries to forget a town full of memories. He tries to forget a house full of nothing. She envies him. He envies her. Too bad things can never be simple. NaruHina AU
1. Cousins

Introduction: Cousins

Ice-cold air drifted through an open window to linger on a pale, gentle face, quickly startling that face into a state of awareness. Bleary grey eyes welcomed the world spitefully as a slow hand ran through long, dark strands of hair; and, with a sigh, the newest junior of Konoha's Pembrooke Academy heaved herself out of bed. Tired legs barely survived their quick tumble towards the shower, but soon learned their footing as warm, soft water cascaded over them. Shampoo and conditioner trickled their way through mounds of hair while almond-scented body wash cloaked porcelain skin. After one final rinse, a towel absorbs the excess moisture and provides cover as a comb snags tangles. When the comb finishes its task, the towel falls over the shower curtain to hang and dry as the hand that tossed the towel begins to pull on clothing.

It is only after she stands in front of the bathroom mirror, hopelessly rubbing at a black pen mark on her lavender shirt, that she allows herself to worry about her first day at her new school. Her cousin Neji would always tell her odd stories about his school at family get-togethers, and now she would have to attend with him. At least he was older than her, that way she would have no need to face the embarrassment of following Neji around; not being able to depend on her cousin would give her wings a well-needed nudge towards spreading.

She gave up on the pen mark and exited the bathroom, picking up her school bag as she continued on through her room and into the hallway. Pausing at her cousin's door, she knocked to see if he was ready for school yet.

"Neji?" she quietly asked the door. When no one answered, she walked down a flight of stairs and into the kitchen, only to see empty seats and a cereal bowl with only milk and an abandoned spoon left in it. She walked back upstairs, frantically wondering if her cousin had forgotten about her and left already; it _had_ just been winter break, so maybe… But she would not think like that. She was probably too quiet when she knocked.

Once again, she knocked at her cousin's door, this time with more force, and was gifted with a reply this time, in the form of a grumble and a, "Wait two seconds." And a few minutes later, her cousin opened the door and led her down the stairs and into the kitchen, where he cleaned up the cereal bowl.

As if answering her silent question, he said, "I like to eat breakfast before I brush my teeth." She was surprised, because the cousin she knew would typically stay silent and leave the mystery of the cereal bowl for her to figure out on her own. Maybe he was trying to help her feel more at home in his house. She decided that this meant he was in a nice enough mood for her to ask a question without getting on his nerves.

"Um, Neji, you know I have only been here a couple of days, so… Where is Hizashi?" she questioned, wondering if that was a rude thing to ask.

"He leaves for work early in the morning," Neji replied.

Her eyes widened; it was not yet seven in the morning, but Hizashi was already long gone. She pitied his job if he needed to wake up so early, especially since she knew that he usually got home late as well.

Neji started towards the door and she followed him all the way out to the car, checking her bag for all of her necessities along the way. It was when she saw the black Stratus that she understood what exactly Hizashi's early departure meant.

"H-have you ever g-gotten a ticket?" she asked, the words falling from her lips before she could think.

"I have never received a ticket; I am a very capable driver," Neji insisted, walking around to the driver's side of the vehicle to unlock the door with his key. "And I thought you had gotten rid of that stutter years ago, Hinata."

"I have," she replied indignantly. "I only stuttered because the thought of you driving a car scares me." She knew that saying something so outwardly rude might annoy him, but she needed to show him that she was a lot more courageous now than she was when she last saw him. After all, she had been through a lot lately and she was still standing. Actually, she was sitting, buckled into Neji's car at that point, but the idea was the same.

"If you say so," Neji said, casting a glance that might have been worried in her direction before looking backwards to back out of the driveway.

As soon as the car touched the government-issue asphalt of the main road, Neji connected his iPod to the car. Soon, jumbled blurts of songs blasted through the vehicle as Neji searched through his playlist for a song he liked, finally settling on a song by 3OH!3. He continued to play high-energy songs until they arrived at the school. It was enough that by the time Hinata got out of Neji's car, she was smiling and singing some of the lyrics to herself.

Hinata started toward the front doors, still smiling her head off. She caught sight of a satisfied smirk on her cousin's face, so she said, "Thank you, Neji," just before he went out of earshot. Neji had played happy songs to help her psych herself up for her first day. Apparently he could be kind when he felt like it.

Hinata quickly changed her mind when she tried the doors and found them locked. He _so_ could have told her about that.

_Cousins…_

* * *

Deidara: Hey, Ellz, you think they want a muffin? I could give them a muffin for reviewing.

Ellie (me, your author): Of course they want a muffin, reviewing is hard work.

Deidara: But writing is hard work too! And no one gives you muffins!

Ellie: *sigh* I know. But reviews are just as good, so please leave one, my dear reader!

.

P.S. I accidentally deleted my one-shots, if you were wondering where they went


	2. Stupid Pride

Chapter One: Stupid Pride

Hinata sighed, a tuft of her dark hair puffing out with her breath as she walked down a hallway for the third time in five minutes. She was trying unsuccessfully to find her third period math class, but the odd numbering system of individual hallways made finding her class more difficult than the class itself was likely to be. If she took much longer, she would end up arriving late, and that was not the first impression she wanted to make at her new school, so Hinata steeled herself up to ask help from the next person she saw.

A long red sweep of hair and small oval glasses preceded a very scantily dressed girl with more accessories than brain cells, as was made evident by the extra-help classroom she entered, and Hinata decided to wait for one more person to go by.

The next person to make their way down the hallway had warm brown hair imprisoned up in two buns with just enough hair falling down near her eyes to keep her from looking ridiculous. Said girl was also wearing a very frustrated expression and kept flexing very competent-looking knuckles as she continued down the hallway towards Hinata. Hinata's eye widened and she silently cursed her luck, since she would certainly be late if she could not get directions from this girl.

"Uh, hi," Hinata began in a small voice, knowing from experience that startling angry women always led to bad things. "I was wondering if—"

"Are you talking to me?" the brunette asked a bit roughly.

Hinata suppressed a nervous giggle at the slight De Niro impression. "Yes, I am talking to you. I would like it if you could help me find my next class," Hinata continued bravely, but the brunette was staring to lose interest and walk away. "I have math with Yuuhi-sensei in room—"

"Cut-throat Kurenai? Follow me, I have her right now too," the girl offered, and walked swiftly in what Hinata had to assume was the correct direction. "By the way, my name is Tenten. What's yours?"

"Hyuuga Hinata," Hinata answered automatically, and a little more directly than she would have liked.

"Here we are," Tenten announced as she lead Hinata towards the last available seats in the classroom.

Hinata sat down cautiously next to a boy that was sporting a glare fit to kill the Chinese army as Tenten fired off her next question.

"So I'm guessing you are the cousin Neji told me about?" she asked, raising her eyebrows as if Hinata had not been what she was expecting.

"Uh, well he could have meant my sister, Hanabi-chan, but she's…" Hinata trailed off, not wanting to finish her sentence.

Tenten's eyebrows knitted in confusion, and then relaxed as she decided not to further press Hinata about Hanabi.

"I'm sure that he meant you, because I remember him whining about how much silkier and longer your hair is than his," Tenten said, her eyes glowing with silent laughter.

Tenten was about to say something more when "Cut-throat Kurenai" came into the room. The room fell to the kind of silence that only church mice are fond of and apprehension melted through the room like the world's polar ice caps.

"Hey guys, did you all have a good summer?" Kurenai said cheerily, smiling at the class as if they were the sprinkles on top of her ice cream.

The class was silent, and Hinata glanced around nervously to see how everyone else was reacting. Strangely enough, everyone looked surprised.

"I guess you all had boring summers. Okay, roll call…" Kurenai began to go down the roster of students and write down where each of them sat.

She went through all of the rules of her classroom, told the class to talk amongst themselves, and exited the classroom as suddenly as she had walked in. Hinata had never met the teacher before, yet she was still sure that the teacher was behaving abnormally. Her other teachers so far had made her go up in front of the class to introduce herself, and surely someone known as "Cut-throat Kurenai" would have made her do something much more mortifying.

"What happened to Cut-throat Kurenai?" Tenten asked the general space of air in front of her. Hinata and Tenten both jumped a bit when the air next to Hinata answered Tenten's question.

"She got laid." The voice came from the boy who was murdering people with his eyes.

"Sasuke, you can't just say that in front of two girls, especially when you haven't even met one of them!" Tenten exclaimed, not used to such blunt words. Tenten was sure that Sasuke's word usage had shocked Hinata as well, since they both spent much time around Neji, who would never put something in such a way when talking to a female.

"You. With the long hair. What's your name?" Sasuke asked, tilting his head up fast so he could get the hair out of his eyes and see this new girl properly.

"Hinata," Hinata replied, not giving him her surname because Neji always spoke of how Sasuke and he were not the best of friends.

Without his hair to obstruct his view, Sasuke took in Hinata's appearance, from her gentle gray eyes down to her soft pink lips, and back up to see that her cheeks were free of a blush and her eyes lacked the fervent quality of most girls that looked his way. Sasuke's eyes dragged lower, past her neckline, where they slid to a stop, admiring the curve of Hinata's chest.

Hinata was confused as to why Sasuke was now staring at her, until she remembered the pen mark on her shirt.

"Oh, um, pen doesn't come out in the wash, so the ink is permanently there, I know it looks weird, a random blue dot on my purple shirt…" Hinata said, a little embarrassed.

"Sasuke, stop undressing her with your eyes," Tenten commanded, feeling bad for the more innocent Hinata. It was a statement to the kind of personality Hinata had for her to give Sasuke the benefit of the doubt like that.

With that said, Sasuke turned away so that neither girl could see the slight red quality that his face took on. When he turned back, Hinata looked very flustered and _oh_ so much more attractive. Sasuke smirked; he would have to embarrass her more often. Not that he would admit to actually finding her attractive, he had heard that she was Neji's cousin.

Before Sasuke could finish convincing himself that he definitely did **not** think a Hyuuga looked better than the girl on the cover of the newest issue of the Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit Edition, the bell rang and Sasuke found his next chance to keep Hinata flustered.

"Hinata, out of apology, would you let me take you to your next class?" he asked, tilting his head in a way that he knew made him look harmless. After all, maybe this girl would make a good friend for him, he _was_ a bit out of touch with the female population.

Hinata looked to Tenten, who waved her hand as if saying, "Go ahead, we probably don't have our next class together anyway," and walked off while rattling off a threat about what would happen if she found out Sasuke hurt a single hair on Hinata's head.

"Yeah, that would be nice, I still don't understand this numbering system," Hinata replied. "I have gym next," she added helpfully.

"Ah, so do I," Sasuke said and, to Hinata's surprise, took her hand to lead her in the direction of the gymnasium.

Once Sasuke had successfully dropped her off in front of the girl's locker room, he looked over his shoulder to see if his plan had worked. Hinata was still just a bit flustered.

Sasuke frowned to himself, as he had been hoping to make her blush.

_I wonder, _he thought, _does she ever blush? If I held hands with any other girl in this school, they would be close to fainting. Maybe not _**any**_ other girl in this school, but at least three-quarters of them. Stupid Hyuuga, making me curious… Now I have to make her blush. Stupid pride…_

* * *

Itachi:-death glare-

Ellie: Deidara! I told you not to let Itachi near the readers! He scares them away with his Mangekyo!

Itachi: Ellz, you know I just do it because they never give you enough reviews.

Ellie: They give me plenty of reviews, they leave one whenever they are able to and I respect that! Maybe if _you_ left me a review every once in a while, Itachi, I would not be so irritable right now!

Itachi: Hn.

Deidara: -drags Itachi away before he gets murdered for using the "H-N" word in front of Ellie- Uh, sorry about that folks, Itachi loves to be a royal pain. And remember, more reviews mean a happy author, and a happy author is a faster-updating author!


	3. My Feet Are Big

Chapter Two: My Feet Are Big

A pink-and-peach blur swiveled its way through Hinata's line of sight, although at that point of time, it was more like a curve of sight.

"Hey, are you okay?" the blur asked, sounding very concerned.

Hinata could not fathom at first what was worrying this mass of feminine color, but then remembered the dodge-ball. And how said dodge-ball kept getting bigger and bigger, until **smack**, it hit her.

"Yes, my vision is already clearing up. How… how long was I out?" Hinata questioned in return.

"Only a few seconds. You're a real trooper to take one in the head like that from—" Sakura tried to explain before getting cut off.

"I'm so sorry! I'm really, really, _really_ sorry! See, I was just trying to hit Sakura there, but then she moved and oh, you just _had_ to move out of the way, didn't you, Sakura? When she moved the ball was right in level with your head and I couldn't do anything about it and—"

"NARUTO!" Sakura exclaimed. "Calm down and give her some space!"

Hinata slowly sat up, knowing that getting up too fast would make her vision return to being fuzzy. She only got hit in the head with a rubber ball and she was fine now, so why was this "Naruto" still nervously hopping from foot to foot and watching her worriedly?

"Naruto-san, I am fine," Hinata assured him.

She then began to struggle to her feet and almost fell right back down to the floor, steadied only by a pair of tough, well-muscled arms that were eager to help.

"No, you're not fine! If you were fine you would have been able to get up perfectly well right now! I think I damaged your medusa or your brain stick or—" Naruto rambled on until Sakura cut him off.

"It's called the medu**ll**a, Naruto, and it's the brain _stem_ not the brain _stick_ and the medulla is part of the brain stem, so they both control the same things, none of which are coordination. If you damaged her cerebellum, then her coordination would be off like you think it just was. Really, it was just your foot placement that made Hinata start to fall, you idiot. You never were very observant or good at science," Sakura explained, feeling the usual stress of being around Naruto.

At this point in time, the teacher finally chose to walk over and find out what had happened. His overly-animate eyebrows sky-rocketed to his hairline when Hinata claimed she was fine, and he insisted that she sit out for the rest of gym class with Naruto, who was being punished for throwing a ball hard enough to hurt someone in the first place.

So now Naruto sat beside Hinata on the gymnasium floor, his ears slightly red from when he found out that it was both his fault that Hinata was knocked unconscious and that Hinata nearly fell over and got hurt again when she stood up.

"Hinata, was it?" Naruto asked, trying to confirm if he had learned the correct name. When Hinata nodded, he continued speaking. "I really am sorry. I should have known that Sakura would duck out of the way; she was always good at dodging things, ever since we were kids."

"And I really am fine now. I've taken much more physical damage than that before, so don't worry," Hinata assured him.

Naruto scanned her face for a moment, looking for the tell-tale signs of a white lie. When he found none, he grabbed hold of Hinata's hand and held it if front of both of their chests.

"You'd tell me if I hurt you, right?" he questioned earnestly, the red gone from his ears and his eyes full of hurt and distrust.

Hinata was too distracted by his eyes to formulate a valid answer. His eyes had an overwhelming _knowledge_, the kind of knowledge you cannot obtain through anything but experience. Each fleck of cyan in his ice-blue irises told of a different night he had spent alone and full of sorrow, crying himself to sleep. She could not stop looking at his eyes; she wanted that _knowledge_, that _pain._ She wanted it to be **hers** not his; he in no way deserved such suffering…

When Hinata did not answer after a few moments, Naruto squeezed her hand and the physical pain pulled her away from his eyes to settle her visage in the direction of her hand.

"Actually, you're kind of hurting me right now with your hand…" Hinata trailed off, trying not to hurt his feelings, because she had actually enjoyed his steady grip.

Naruto responded with an apologetic look, a bit of awkward, sheepish laughter, and the release of her hand. Hinata reflexively flexed her fingers before returning her hand to her lap, realizing that it was the second time within the expanse of a day, within the expanse of an _hour_ that a boy had been bold enough to hold her hand.

_Maybe people in this school system just have a lower standard of what certain actions mean; they certainly have a lower __**dress code**_, Hinata mused, pulling her hair out from the necessary ponytail-style of gym class. _But what was that look Naruto had? I have never seen anyone with that kind of look on their face, nor have I ever felt such a strong urge to take someone into my arms and tell them everything will be okay …_

"Your hair looks nice when it's down," Naruto complimented, examining a strand for himself between two of his fingers.

"Huh? Oh, thank you," Hinata replied, carefully taking the strand of hair back from Naruto. When someone knocks you out, you get a little concerned about what they might do to your hair. "You have nice… shoes," she complimented back. His shoes were black running shoes with, oddly enough, orange laces.

"You really think so? Most people just say they look like little-kid Halloween shoes. I just got these a few days ago, because I moved up another shoe size," Naruto said, sounding a little self-conscious.

"Yeah, they definitely look good, and saying they look like little-kid Halloween shoes is stereotyping," Hinata said, smiling a little at the thought of shoe-stereotypes. "You shouldn't care what people think about your shoes anyway."

"I don't care what they think about my shoes," Naruto insisted, "I care what they think about my feet."

_Because there's __**such**__ a big difference between caring about shoes and caring about feet_, Hinata thought a little sarcastically.

"Hinata-chan, do you think my feet are big?"

* * *

Kisame: Who cares if his feet are big? They are FEET which means that only weird people stare at them!

Ellie: Kisame, what have I told you about negativity?

Kisame: -sigh- "Being a Negative Nancy only makes everyone around you feel bad about him- or herself." But Ellz, your reviewers are the only other people around!

Ellie: All the more reason for you to behave yourself! It is hard enough to convince them to leave a comment! And besides, what if Naruto was around to hear your comm—

Naruto: Kisame… I suggest you get a ten second head start.

Kisame: -runs- Itachi, help me!

Naruto: -chases Kisame- I am _sensitive_ about my motherfu—

Ellie: Language! –goes to hit Naruto for his swearing in front of a lady-

Naruto: -finishes his previous sentence- Feet!

Itachi: Kindly review while I calm everyone down. Like always. –glares at the world-


End file.
